Mamur Zapt and the Return of the Carpet. Michael Pearce

of two arabeahs which had just pulled out of the pavement. All three drivers jumped down from their vehicles and began to abuse the drivers of the brick carts, who themselves felt obliged to descend to the ground, the better to put their own point of view. Other vehicles came to a halt and other drivers joined in. Some Passover sheep, painted in stripes and with silver necklaces around their necks, which had been trotting peacefully along beside the Ezbekiyeh Gardens, abandoned the small boy who was herding them and wandered out into the middle of the traffic. In a moment all was confusion and uproar. The Place, that is, had returned to normal.

      ‘That,’ said Mahmoud resignedly, ‘is that.’

      The two had taken a liking to each other and Mahmoud, unusually for the Parquet, invited Owen to be present at his interrogation. It took place in the Police Headquarters at the Bab el Khalk. They were shown into a bare, green-painted room on the ground floor which looked out on to an enclosed square across which the prisoner was brought from his cell.

      He looked dishevelled and his eyes were bloodshot but otherwise he seemed to have completely recovered from his heavy drugging. He looked at them aggressively as the police led him in. In Owen’s experience a fellah, or peasant, caught for the first time in the toils of the alien law tended to respond either with truculent aggression or with helpless bewilderment. This one was truculent.

      After the preliminaries Mahmoud got down to business.

      ‘Your name?’

      ‘Mustafa,’ the man growled.

      ‘Where are you from?’

      ‘El Deyna is my village,’ he said reluctantly.

      El Deyna was a small village on the outskirts of old Cairo just beyond the Citadel.

      ‘You have work in the fields,’ said Mahmoud. ‘What brought you to the city yesterday?’

      ‘I came to kill Nuri Pasha,’ said the other uncompromisingly.

      ‘And why did you want to kill Nuri Pasha?’

      ‘He dishonoured my wife’s sister.’

      ‘Your story will be checked,’ said Mahmoud.

      He waited to see if this had any effect on the man but it did not.

      ‘How did he dishonour your wife’s sister?’

      Mustafa did not reply. Mahmoud repeated the question. Again there was no response. The fellah just sat, brawny arms folded.

      Mahmoud tried again.

      ‘Others will tell us if you do not,’ he said.

      The man just sat stubbornly there.

      ‘Come, man,’ said Mahmoud, not unkindly. ‘We are only trying to get at the truth that lies behind this business.’

      ‘There is one truth for the rich,’ the villager said bitterly, ‘and another for the poor.’

      ‘The truth we seek,’ said Mahmoud, ‘is not necessarily that for the rich.’

      ‘The rich have all the weapons,’ the man said, ‘and you are one of the weapons.’

      Unexpectedly, Mahmoud seemed to flinch.

      ‘I would not have it so,’ he said mildly.

      The man had noticed Mahmoud’s reaction. It seemed to mollify him.

      ‘Nor I,’ he said, mildly too. ‘I would not have it so.’

      He rubbed his unshaven chin.

      ‘Others will tell you,’ he said. ‘My wife’s family works in the fields for Nuri Pasha. One day Nuri went by. He saw my wife’s sister. He said: ‘Tell her to bring some melons to the house.’ She brought the melons and a man took her in. He took her to a dark room and Nuri came to her.’

      ‘That was wrong,’ said Mahmoud, ‘but it was wrong also to try to kill for that.’

      ‘What was I to do?’ the man said passionately. ‘I am a poor man and it is a big family. Now she is with child. Before, there was one mouth and she could work in the fields. A man wanted her and would have taken her at a low price. Now there are two mouths and she has been dishonoured. No one will take her now except at a large price. And how can I find a large price for her?’

      Unconsciously he had laid his hand on the table palm uppermost as if he was pleading with Mahmoud.

      ‘How?’ he repeated vehemently. ‘How? I have children of my own.’

      Mahmoud leaned across the table and touched him sympathetically on the arm.

      ‘There is worse, friend,’ he said. ‘How will they manage without you when you are gone?’

      The passion went out of the man’s face.

      ‘There will be money,’ he said, and bowed his head, ‘without me.’

      ‘How can that be,’ asked Mahmoud softly, ‘when you have none?’

      ‘Others will provide.’

      ‘What others? Your family?’

      ‘Others.’

      Both sides seemed to consent to a natural pause, which lasted for several minutes. Owen was impressed. He knew that if he had been conducting the interrogation, in the distant English way, he would never have reached the man as Mahmoud had done.

      Mahmoud leaned forward now and touched Mustafa on the sleeve.

      ‘Tell me, brother,’ he said, ‘about your visit to the city yesterday.’

      ‘I went to the city,’ said the man, almost as if he was reciting, ‘and there were many people. I was one of a crowd. And I saw that bad one and I fired my gun at him. And he fell over, and I gave thanks to Allah.’

      ‘How did you know where to find the bad one?’ asked Mahmoud.

      The man frowned.

      ‘I do not know,’ he admitted. ‘He was suddenly there before me.’

      ‘Someone told you, I expect,’ said Mahmoud.

      The man did not pick this up.

      ‘Have you been to the Place before?’

      Mustafa shook his head.

      ‘Never.’

      ‘And yet you knew where to find him,’ Mahmoud observed.

      He waited, but again the man did not pick it up.

      Mahmoud switched.

      ‘Where did you get the gun?’

      The man did not reply.

      ‘Did the one who told you where to find the bad one also give you the revolver?’

      Again there was no reply.

      ‘If the rich have their weapons,’ said Mahmoud, ‘and I am one of them, you, too, are a weapon. Who is wielding you?’

      ‘Not the rich!’

      ‘When the tool is broken it is thrown away.’

      ‘I am not broken,’ said the man defiantly.

      ‘As a tool you are broken. As a weapon.’

      ‘My task is done,’ said the man. ‘I am satisfied.’

      ‘Nuri is still alive.’

      The man looked at him, startled.

      ‘Didn’t you know? The shot missed.’

      ‘Is that the truth?’

      ‘On the Book.’

      The man buried his face in his hands.

      ‘I am a poor weapon.’

      ‘You have fed too much on